ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: Why constitutional economics differs from public choice. A methodological analysis of Buchanan's economics of politics
Author: MARCIANO Alain
The purpose of this article is to analyse the paradox of an economist who is one of the most important contributor to one of the most successful instance of economic imperialism, and, at the same time, criticises and even opposes certain forms of economic imperialism. The explanation we propose is that Buchanan does not use the same definition of economics as other contributors to economic imperialism. Buchanan even rejects a conception of human societies in which choice occupies the central position and, accordingly, criticies the definition of economics proposed by Robbins in 1932 based on scarcity, choice and allocation of resources. He claims that exchange, rather than choice, is important in socieites. Therefore economics or should not be defined as a science-of-choice but rather as a science-of-exchange. This change of definition of economics leads him to shift his focus from political to constitutional phenomena, from the functioning to the foundations of democracies, from public choice to constitutional economics.
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